Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the late nineteenth century was the rise of the English seaside resort (E.W.Gilbert 1939,
1949, 1954; Walton 1983; Towner 1996). As Billinge (1996:447) argued, it was 'the
provision of set aside resorts for the masses at the scale of the whole township: the
seaside resort where behaviour inappropriate in any other occasion could be loosed to
burn itself out'. This can be viewed as a further example of the way in which Victorian
society sought to exercise both a degree of social and spatial control of recreational
spaces and activities among its populace. This created a social necessity for recreation as
freedom from work: a non-work activity to recreate body and soul, to be refreshed for the
capitalist economic system, with its regulated time discipline of a place for everything,
and everything in its place.
For this reason, it is pertinent to consider the key features of J.Clark and Crichter's
(1985) historical synthesis of urban leisure and recreation in Britain, since it helps to
explain how changes in society shaped the modern-day patterns of urban recreation.
Clark and Crichter (1985) adopt a cross-section approach to analyse key periods in
nineteenth- and twentieth-century British urban society to emphasise the nature of the
changes and type of urban recreation and leisure pursuits. It also helps to explain how the
evolution of urban places and recreational activities emerged.
THE 1800s
As emphasised earlier in this chapter, Britain was in the process of emerging from a pre-
industrial state. While cities were not a new phenomenon (P.Clark 1981), the movement
of the rural population to nascent cities meant that the traditional boundary between work
and non-work among the labouring classes was increasingly dictated by the needs of
factory or mechanised production. Therefore, pre-industrial flexibility in the work-non-
work relationship associated with cottage industries and labouring on the land changed.
This led to a clearer distinction between work and non-work time, as time discipline
emerged as a portent force during the industrial revolution (Pred 1981). In the pre-
industrial, non-urbanised society, leisure and recreational forms were associated with
market days, fairs, wakes, holidays, religious and pagan festivals which provided
opportunities for sport. While the 1800s are often characterised by brutish behaviour and
ribaldry, civilising influences emerged in the form of Puritanism to engender moral
sobriety and spatial changes associated with the enclosure movement, which removed
many strategic sites of customary activity.
In contrast, the geographical patterns of recreation of the ruling classes
eschewed contact with lower orders. Its forms were as yet disparate.
Shooting, hunting and horse racing …the major flat race classics date
from the 1770s onwards…. For the increasingly influential urban
bourgeoisie, the theatre, literature, seaside holidays and music hall
denoted more rational forms of leisure which depended for their decorum
on the exclusion of the mass of the population.
(J.Clark and Crichter 1985:55)
